Page 46 of Resolve
“Raegan!” Aiden shouts.
I turn to see what’s wrong just as the floor vanishes, and I drop. Jackson dives after me, and we disappear into a portal.
Chapter seventeen
Aiden
Concreterushestowardus.I reach for my gift and instinctively seek out Raegan. But Jackson’s already wrapped around her instead of slowing our fall, and the truth hits me like a punch—we’re giftless. My gut hollows out, the power that was flooding my veins a heartbeat ago gone. Completely.
We slam to the ground before I can do anything more than cover my head. Pain shoots through my left arm, and my head bounces and smacks the concrete. Another burst of pain erupts in my head, ricocheting through my body as the injuries begin to register.
“Jack! Jack!”
I crack my eyes open at the sound of her voice. She’s on her hands and knees over Jack, whose eyes are closed. I roll to my side, biting back a groan and forcing myself to stand. Severe throbbing nags at my left temple, momentarily blinding me before I attempt moving again. Kellan’s sitting up and rolling his wrist.
Dane’s not here.
Neither is Harvey’s sibling nor the two dead men who’d been in the bedroom with us. It was a targeted attack, exactly where we’dbeen standing, to make sure only we fell through.
“Jack! Wake up!” she begs, stroking his face and running her hand through his hair. She freezes, lifting her hand and staring at it in horror. I move behind her to see it.
Blood.
Raegan dives forward and angles his head to one side, lifting his hair and stroking her fingers along his scalp to find the source. I drop to his other side to help her until we find it.
“It’s just a scrape,” I reassure her, checking its size and depth. It’s what we can’t see beneath the surface injury that worries me. I’m sure he angled himself to avoid his head hitting first, but it clearly got him anyway, as it had me.
Kellan walks around us to a wall of thick metal bars, cursing under his breath. “They dropped us in a prison cell.”
“Where’s Dane?” Raegan asks breathlessly, her gaze scanning the ten-by-ten concrete box we’re in and coming to the same realization as me.
They’ve taken him.
Kell cups his hands over his mouth as he presses his forehead against the bars. “Dane!”
Nothing.
I leave Jack with Raegan and join Kellan, walking under the sets of chains and shackles dangling ominously from the ceiling. I reach for one of the bars separating us from what looks like a narrow, rectangular office. The metal is cool in my grip. So familiar, so comforting, and yet it betrays me. It doesn’t bend, doesn’t even flicker with a response when I try to force my will over it. What usually feels so alive, soright, is now cold and rigid.
“The darts we were hit with must be what shut down our gifts,”I muse aloud. Vera told Raegan they were weaponizing gifts. This is just one terrifying application of that. They don’t even have to be within reach and holding still to get jewelry on. They can fire from a distance, from a hiding place, and immediately get the advantage over any gifted person, regardless of what they can do.
“Do either of you still have yours?” It’s wishful thinking to hope one of us got missed, but it’s worth asking the question. Both shake their heads, and I already know the answer about Jack. If he’d had his gift, he would have caught all of us before we hit the ground.
“What if it’s permanent?” Raegan holds one of Jack’s hands in hers, her other hand cradling his face and trying to wake him. “The collar and cuffs are on all the time. If we got injected with it, does that mean...?”
Jackson’s hand twitches, then twists and snatches her hand as his eyes fly open.
“Jack!” Raegan gasps with relief, but it's short-lived when he pushes himself upright and her brow furrows with concern. “Wait. You could have a concussion.”
His eyes do a quick sweep around us, taking account of our situation in a single glance, then focus on Raegan. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head. “No. But your head—”
“It’s fine.” He looks at me, ready for my assessment of our predicament since he’d been unconscious.
I pick up where we left off, knowing Jack will fill in what he missed easily enough. “There’s no telling how long the effects will last or if it’ll be permanent. If it’s temporary, then I’d assume the effects will wear off either by fluids flushing it out of our system or by time lessening its strength.” I don’t bother going into what it’ll mean for us if it’ll be permanent.
At the very least, we’d no longer be a threat to Charles. A more optimistic person might hope he’d let us go, but the realist in me says otherwise. We know about Gifted Enterprise and what they’re really doing. We’re a liability.
